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Monday, March 23, 2015

With poster art that parodies Grant Wood’s famous painting
of the same name, this late entry in the 1980’s slasher boom was more likely to
be first discovered amongst the cluttered VHS rental shelves of a video store than
in a proper cinema despite being given a modest theatrical release in the
spring of 1988.

Rod Steiger and Yvonne DeCarlo topline this slice of
Canadian schlock as the psychotic scripture-spouting parents of a backwoods Bible-fearing
family of three middle-aged adults with childlike minds and decidedly adult
homicidal tendencies. Grown daughter Fanny (Janet Wright) wears her hair in pig
tails and totes around a mummified baby in a veiled bassinet; pudgy son Teddy
(William Hootkins) has a childish temper matched only by his adult libido; and
giggling son Woody (Michael J. Pollard) is a taunting tattletale.

When three irritating yuppie couples charter a plane for a
weekend camping getaway, you know it’s only a matter of seconds after the synthesizer-heavy
opening credits before their prop plane’s engine sputters out and the requisite
emergency landing strands them on a generic forest-shrouded island of dubious derivation.
After establishing that the plane won’t start and the radio won’t work, the
hapless slasher fodder set out in search of help, instead stumbling upon the Rockwellian
farmhouse of Ma and Pa (the actual character names!).

Although the six ill-fated travelers of AMERICAN GOTHIC are
chronologically older than their high school and college-age slasher film
predecessors, advanced age does little to aid in the development of internal
alarms even after they step into the timeworn time warp of Ma and Pa’s parlor
and break bread with the family.

What follows is a by-the-numbers slasher, with dashes of incest,
necrophilia, and infanticide thrown in to sweeten the carnage casserole. Like
all good slashers, AMERICAN GOTHIC is requisitely cliché-ridden and fans will
find much comfort in the film’s essentially intact formula, right down to its
killer tagline: The family that slays
together stays together. The inventive kills here mimic childhood games –
murder by swing and jump rope, eye gouging with a toy soldier's bayonet.

Then – after the largely forgettable cast is systematically
slaughtered by the murderous trio of siblings – AMERICAN GOTHIC does something
interesting with its final girl, veering from the obligatory chase scene and
into the decidedly more grindhouse-gothic territory of early 70’s films like TERROR
AT RED WOLF INN. Lone survivor Cynthia (Sarah Torgov) – who we know from
flashbacks is of questionable sanity herself following the bathtub drowning
death of her baby and a stint in a “clinic” of indiscernible origin – seemingly
snaps and is adopted as Ma and Pa’s fourth “child”. Now dressed as Fanny’s
clone in shiny black Mary Janes, pink-gingham dress, and pigtails, Cynthia
seems right at home with her new wackadoodle family – at least until it’s bath
time for Fanny’s baby mummy. Flashing back to her own baby’s death, Cynthia re-snaps and struggles with Fanny for
the baby, whose mummified head is ripped from its body in the ensuing scuffle.
Baby mummy’s beheading earns Fanny a bloody bludgeoning with a galvanized steel
tub and each remaining member of the family their own Cynthia-style
comeuppance. Like many a final girl before and after her, poor Cynthia is left
abandoned – both physically on the island and mentally in her own mind – to
stew in her own insanity, cradling and cooing to her (dead and decapitated) baby mummy.﻿

Although Director John Hough was no stranger to genre fare,
having directed THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973), THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS
(1980), and THE INCUBUS (1982), he never manages to balance the dark humor with
the requisite chills necessary to ground the slasher mayhem – and ﻿the result is
an uneven film that never quite gains a firm footing in either comedy or
horror. Still, AMERICAN GOTHIC does manage to achieve the camp factor of the
earlier MOTEL HELL in spots when it isn’t dipping its toes into the completely
absurd. Steiger and DeCarlo –
questionably slumming it here – chew the scenery with particularly gleeful
abandon, later incarnations of Farmer Vincent and his sausage-making sister,
Ida. Wright, who bears a passing resemblance to MOTEL’s late Nancy Parsons, is
chillingly good as Fanny – putting to rest the question of what would have happened
if John Waters ever decided to remake WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BAY JANE? with an
adult Shirley Temple in the lead.

﻿

Interestingly, Hough may have actually been ahead of his
time with AMERICAN GOTHIC and its twisted take on religion and family values
years before the evangelical political galvanization here in this country. Although
remake-weary audiences are loathe to endure yet another slasher film reboot,
reimagining, or recalibration, the timeliness of Hough’s – and screenwriters Burt Wetanson’s and Michael Vines’ –
source material may be ripe for some restyling.

By 1988, the golden era of the slasher film had begun its
inevitable pop culture fade, retiring for its eight-year nap before SCREAM
would re-awaken it, refreshed for at least awhile. Even diehard fans of the
popular sub-genre knew it was time to give the slasher a rest when the
imitators were being imitated, when films like AMERICAN GOTHIC ripped off
earlier HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH rip-offs like JUST BEFORE DAWN and
HUMONGOUS.

On the surface, AMERICAN GOTHIC is equal parts corny and
well-worn, but – at least on repeated viewings over time – the film washes over
like a hallucinogenic fever dream.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

2014 was another banner year in music. And while women (once again) largely dominated my forthcoming list of favorite albums of the year, several gents sneaked their way into my musical consciousness, landing in my annual list of favorite singles. Without further comment (these catchy tunes can speak for themselves, after all), here's my countdown of the Top 14 singles of 2014:

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Ladies, start
your engines. I’m calling bullshit on the myth that Hollywood discards women of
a certain age – namely, the forty-plus set. Internet obsession over Renée Zellweger’s recent red carpet appearance
and the endless dissection of her did-she-or-didn’t-she
cosmetic surgery choices have dragged up another well-worn hot topic: The purported
invisibility of women over 40 in Hollywood. What was once an upwardly trending
reality is now nothing more than a myth used – both conveniently and erroneously
– in bigger (and more important) discussions on feminist topics.

It’s an easy
fallback for folks to trot out the same old adage about women over 40 in
Hollywood being dead, invisible, or [insert your own adjective here] in our
(largely) ageist society. But it’s an assertion with little evidence to back it
up these days and an old, misleading headline that needs to be retired.

In fact, the
opposite is true. Women of a certain age aren't merely enjoying greater
visibility on the screen – they’re dominating the field. What’s even better is
that these demographic-defying actors come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and
ethnicities. Some come au naturel with their marvelous character-defining
lines and wrinkles intact, others nipped and tucked and plumped to varying
degrees. But they’re here and ever-present – not some forgotten castoffs
relegated to background scenes. These women are proving that they've got the
acting chops and audience appeal to carry their own shows, and even those in
supporting roles are increasingly being elevated with juicy material that renders
them veritable scene stealers, in comedic and dramatic arenas alike.

Even in a traditionally male-oriented market like horror, women of a
certain age are being afforded great reverence and opportunity. Lifetime’s
recent adaptation of Stephen King’s novella BIG DRIVER featured a mostly female
cast, all over the age of 40: Maria Bello (47), Joan Jett (56), Ann Dowd (58), and
Olympia Dukakis (83). TALES OF POE, an anthology film by Bart Mastronardi and
Alan Rowe Kelly, features genre vets Adrienne King, Amy Steel, Lesleh
Donaldson, Desiree Gould, Debbie
Rochon, and Caroline Williams – all actresses well into their 40s and 50s, some
of whom have worked only intermittently since their earlier heydays. Or there’s
THE SURVIVORS, a project currently in development by William Butler, which is
slated to feature a veritable who’s who of final girls and femme fatales, all
of whom are 40-plus.

In horror-themed series television, Ryan Murphy seems to be the pied
piper of actresses over 40, creating attention-grabbing dream roles and
single-handedly making last names like Lange and Bates water cooler-worthy
topics of conversation. Arguably, THE WALKING DEAD’s most popular character
right now is Carol Peletier, a strong, pragmatic zombie-survivalist who’s
kicking ass and taking names – played by 49-year-old Melissa McBride. To note, THE
WALKING DEAD is viewed by upwards of 15 million people per week.

But, admittedly, there are roles that women over the age of forty are routinely being locked out of: The ingénue.
And that’s because (wait for it) they’re no longer ingénues. There’s a
difference between realism and relevance that gets muddied when these misguided
laments start. No, Goldie Hawn can’t pull off the ditzy ingénue anymore like
she was lucky enough to do well into her early 40s in films like PROTOCOL,
WILDCATS, and OVERBOARD. No filler or lifestyle lift can bring those offers
back to her. Jamie Lee Curtis can’t likely perform a striptease like she did in
TRUE LIES again and expect to achieve the same effect on audiences that she did
at the age of 36. No amount of Activia or clean living is going to contradict
that fact. But neither of these actors is less
than because of those age-related realities, nor is either rendered less
relevant because of them. As mentioned earlier, Curtis – at age 55 – was the
lead in a CBS pilot this past year, and she remains attached to an ABC Family
pilot. She guested on three episodes of FOX’s THE NEW GIRL in 2014, shot a film
with George Lopez and Marisa Tomei, and showed up in a cameo role in the
VERONICA MARS movie. She’s far from irrelevant.

Bringing it back full circle to the topic that started me down this road
of thought, Ms. Zellweger is a seasoned Hollywood player, not a naïve ingénue.
She knew exactly what she was doing when she stepped out onto that red carpet and
what kind of reaction it would elicit when she did so, smiling and posing for photographers.
Unless she's lived under a rock, she knew exactly the kind of scrutiny her
appearance would bring and what kind of media trolls it would summon. Now she's
getting more media attention and sympathy for the vitriol hurled by the
Internet hobgoblins than she's had in years. Sorry, but she (and her publicist)
knew exactly what they were doing and have played their hand exceptionally
well. When was the last time Renée Zellweger was a
top-trending topic anywhere? PEOPLE, VANITY
FAIR, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER...almost every major entertainment media outlet is
spinning this in a Zellweger-positive direction. You couldn't buy this kind of
publicity. In our celebrity-obsessed pop culture, the haters are going to hate
anyway...at least exploit that hate and gain some seriously good PR for a
talented actress who stepped out of the limelight a long time ago.

It's called a silver lining.

Mark my words: There’s a new movie or TV role announcement forthcoming
that will welcome yet another actress of a certain age back into the fold. Bet
on it.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

I’m not one of those film enthusiasts who generally buys
into the hype – either good or bad – surrounding movies. Burned too many times
by the pre-release buzz propagated by the often hive-minded film critic
establishment in the mainstream media, I’m immediately wary of any movie
released to universal lauds. Likewise, I generally dismiss collective critical
denunciation, preferring to judge a film’s merits (or lack thereof) with my own
humble analytical viewing skills. Granted for every widely-panned movie that I
end up extolling its virtues (yes, I’m talking Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN), there
are far more critically-acclaimed films and fan favorites that leave me
scratching my head like CABIN IN THE WOODS, AVATAR, and any number of non-genre
hype movies (Oh, FOREST GUMP, how I detest thee!).

Naturally, I approached this summer’s buzz-generating
SNOWPIERCER with the same abiding skepticism.

SNOWPIERCER marks South Korean directorBong Joon-ho’s English-language
debut. The film is based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige
by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, which was continued as a series with two
subsequent volumes penned by Benjamin Legrand in 1999 and 2000, respectively
(both Rochette and Legrand have cameos in the film in a clever wink to the story’s
literary origins).

When efforts to
thwart an environmental catastrophe backfire, cataclysmically spawning a second
ice age, the last remnants of humanity are reduced to life aboard a thousand-and-one-car
train called the Snowpiercer. The
futuristic ice-chewing train is a self-contained ecosystem that hurtles along
at precariously high-speeds on a continuous loop of track that circles the
globe, with each full rotation marking a calendar year. Designed by an enigmatic
billionaire industrialist, the Snowpiercer
mirrors the social classism of the lost civilization of the planet it now
endlessly circles – with the have’s reveling in in the hedonistic opulence of
the front of the train while the hordes of have not’s are reduced to the
squalid conditions of the rear railway cars. The message is as clear as it is
bleak: Classism will survive the apocalypse.

Even as Tilda
Swinton’s buck-toothed Minster Mason – a schoolmarmish mid-train official
tasked with maintaining social order aboard the Snowpiercer – admonishes the citizens of steerage class to “Know
your place, keep your place”, an uprising is in the works. No longer satisfied
with either their spot or lot aboard the “train of life”, a ragtag (and
internationally diverse) group of passengers – including their reluctant
leader, his sharp-tongued protégé, a mother desperately searching for her taken
child, the train’s drug-addled security expert and his wide-eyed daughter
(bribed into service with a steady supply of a hallucinogenic drug called kronole) , and their wizened, appendage-challenged
mentor – throw their grateful obedience to the wind and make an audacious
charge for the front of the train and its malevolent conductor known only as
Wilford. Within the film’s philosophical thematic core, the precariousness of social hierarchy erupts
into brutal class warfare with comic-book overtones.

What follows is a
mesmerizing master class in production and set design as the revolutionaries
forge their way forward one railway car at a time. The drab gray palette and
cluttered chaos of the rear sections strikingly convey a sense of bleak train-bound
claustrophobia that feels downright airless, while the gradual brightness and
increasingly whimsical coloring of each successive train car snowballs in synch
with the action-packed push forward by the insurgents. The arresting set pieces
and costuming – courtesy of production designer Ondrej Nekvasil, set
decorator Beata Brendtnerovà, and costume designer Catherine George – visually cement the idea of the train’s compartmentalization
as a metaphor for the socioeconomics of society, with each successive car in
this self-sufficient Noah’s Ark taking us from poverty to prosperity. Among the
Snowpiercer’s many onboard amenities:
a nightclub, hair salon, dental suite, classroom, ecological sanctuary, and an aquarium
with (in a twisted little visual one-liner) a sushi bar.

Bong assembles a
stellar multinational cast that includes Chris Evans (here a very different
type of Captain America), John Hurt, Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris,
Jamie Bell (little Billy Elliot all grown up), Song Kang-ho, Ko Ah-sung,
and Alison Pill. Yet it’s the aforementioned Swinton who steals the show and –
if there is any justice – this thespian chameleon will be eyeing Oscar gold
come awards season.

SNOWPIERCER is one of those rare heavily-hyped movies that
actually deserves a one-way ticket to
commercial success, despite the best
efforts of Svengali-like Harvey Weinstein to inexplicably punish this masterwork
by relegating its domestic release to a mere handful of theaters and video on
demand channels. Reportedly, Weinstein demanded twenty minutes of cuts to the
finished film as well as a new prologue and epilogue; Bong refused. Let’s hope
SNOWPIERCER defies the odds stacked against it, realizing its blockbuster
potential and leaving Weinstein to choke on one of the film’s gelatinous
cockroach-infused protein blocks.

SNOWPIERCER is a potpourri of post-apocalyptic audaciousness, a cinematic
experience that blends the high-concept of an arthouse film with the
high-octane of a commercial action-thriller. This highly-stylized science fiction masterpiece and intoxicating
dystopian nail-biter that alternates between action, high camp, and heavy-handed Orwellian allegories about
social stratification. It’s an energetic, wildly-imaginative (literal) train
ride through the permafrost of man’s cruelty to one another and the oppressive
perversities of economic disparity that prove (at least in Bong’s artistic
vision) to be immutable even in the face of extinction.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

You undoubtedly heard the screams of elation this morning
when this consummate Jamie Lee Curtis fan awoke to news of the actress’s
casting in a new CBS pilot, at some past or present point titled ONLY HUMAN. This
casting news quickly became – at least for me – the ultimate good news/bad news
scenario: Curtis had previously been attached to a very tasty horror-drama
pilot over at ABC Family called THE FINAL GIRLS. Now her involvement in the
latter has been dubiously called into question with news of the former.

Here’s what we know:

In September of last year, the Internet went crazy with the
news that ABC Family had bought a high-profile spec script from screenwriter
Jeff Dixon for a buzzy horror-drama pilot. Stoking the fires of excitement was
news that veteran former scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis and her HALLOWEEN: H2O
director, Steve Miner, were attached to the project. THE FINAL GIRLS – its title
referring to the moniker given to the surviving heroine of a slasher film as
coined by Carol J. Clover in her seminal exploration of the subgenre in MEN,
WOMEN, AND CHAIN SAWS: GENDER IN THE MODERN HORROR FILM – is the story of a mysterious older woman (Curtis) who
assembles a group of young women who have each survived their own real-life
horror of some kind “to channel the
stress and scars of their experience for some greater good”.

At the time of the announcement, ABC Family had not actually
greenlit the project but merely closed a deal for the script and the
involvement of those attached. Nothing else has come out officially on the
project, but Dixon has dropped a few vague semi-updates on his blog. He’s
alluded that the show is going through what most savvy viewers know as “the
Hollywood machine” – the countless rewrites, behind-the scenes hirings and
firings, and subsequent delays. Less optimistically read, Dixon hints that THE
FINALS GIRLS is not “in a typical pilot situation” (uh-oh) and that the pilot’s
original March shoot (with an eye on an apropos Halloween bow) isn’t happening.
Factor in a new network President and today’s breaking news of the show’s
leading lady booking another high-profile pilot on a major network and hopeful
horror hearts have no choice but to sink a bit.

ONLY HUMAN, which is penned by David Marshall Grant (of
BROTHERS & SISTERS and SMASH fame), will place la Curtis in the lead role
as a “dynamic and distinguished” physician who is also the mother of adult
quadruplets – three boys and a girl – who grew up in front of reality TV
cameras. According to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Curtis’s Caroline character “seems hard-hitting and demanding,
especially where her son Jonathan, a new hire at the hospital, is concerned.
But her toughness really covers a devastating loss that she has never quite
recovered from – the death of her husband from a rare genetic disease. And the
fact that her children have a 50-50 chance of meeting the same fate has colored
her life ever since."

While being clearly in demand with two high-profile pilot
bookings that all but guarantee the actress’s imminent return to television
with a full-time dramatic role and means a win-win for Curtis fans, it’s now hard
not to ponder which would be the better vehicle for her triumphant return
to series TV. Let’s examine the seeming pros and cons of each.

THE FINAL GIRLS is (putting no too fine a point on this)
every adult horror fan’s dream project. Curtis playing den mother to a bunch of
junior scream queens sounds dark, delicious, and campy. Although the pilot’s
network affiliation seems to indicate that the horror itself might be watered
down for the tween and teen ABC Family demographic, Dixon himself promises this
is not the case and even alludes to a sequence involving a nailgun remaining
intact even after tweaks and revisions to his script. Admittedly, it’s hard to
imagine how nailguns could be considered tame in any sense of the word. In
addition, it’s logical that ABC Family is investing so much time and pre-pilot
work in the project because it’s (perhaps) got some high hopes that the show
will draw in more of the much-coveted 18-49 demographic in an effort to expand
the channel’s reach. On the upside, ratings on basic cable networks don’t need
to be huge to earn future season pick-ups; on the downside, Curtis may command
a pricey paycheck…

…which brings us to the ONLY HUMAN pilot. Without a shadow of a
doubt, CBS – positioned in first place among the major networks – has the
deeper pockets to afford Curtis. Their network also seems to have a built-in older
demographic to which Curtis will have undeniable appeal, having test-driven her
already with a five-episode guest stint on their juggernaut NCIS which resulted
in a ratings spike. Pilot scribe Grant is a respected and pedigreed
screenwriter and producer with proven network success. Plus, the synopsis
sounds darned interesting. On the upside, CBS – unlike NBC or even ABC – has a
better track record of nurturing shows through their freshman year and sticking
with them over a season or two before turning the lights off; on the downside,
good (if not stellar depending upon the show’s price tag) rating are still a
must on network TV, so the pressure would be on.

All this speculation begs the question: Which series would
this unmitigated Jamie Lee Curtis fan prefer to see the actress land and launch?
As always, I’m going with the underdog – in this case, Dixon’s THE FINAL GIRLS.
In terms of sheer ratings potential and water-cooler appeal, I think FINALS
GIRLS has the edge. It’s got a genuine genre pedigree, interesting premise that
screams possibility, and built-in buzz-worthiness. While I think both her role
and profile will be bigger from the get-go in the CBS pilot, I think audience
response to THE FINAL GIRLS and Curtis herself would quickly auto-correct the
slim chance that network execs over at ABC Family would relegate her character to
some sort of framing device (i.e. Charlie in CHARLIE’S ANGELS) and prefer focus
on the youngins. THE FINAL GIRLS or ONLY HUMAN? Either way,
Curtis is poised to make her full-time television comeback. And that’s reason
enough for this longtime fan to celebrate.

About the Author...

Vince Liaguno is the Stoker Award-winning editor of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR: FROM THE SHADOWS OF THE CLOSET (Dark Scribe Press 2008), an anthology of queer horror fiction, which he co-edited with Chad Helder, and BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS, a collection of essays on the formula, frights, and fun of the slasher film. His debut novel, 2006’s THE LITERARY SIX, was a tribute to the slasher films of the 80’s and won an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) for Horror and was named a finalist in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards in the Gay/Lesbian Fiction category.

He is currently at work on his second novel, FINAL GIRL, and editing UNSPEAKABLE HORROR 2: ABOMINATIONS OF DESIRE, the forthcoming second volume in the award-winning anthology series of queer dark fiction.

He currently divides his time between Manhattan and the eastern end of Long Island, New York. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC).